Human β-casein

Abstract

SUMMARYHuman β-casein occurs in multiphosphorylated forms having the same amino acid composition but with 0–5 phosphate groups/molecule. Sequence analysis was used to determine whether each of the phosphorylated forms is a mixture of species having a certain number of phosphate groups randomly distributed or whether each form contains phosphate groups on specific seryl or threonyl residues. It was found that forms containing 2, 4 and 5 phosphate groups/molecule are homogeneous with respect to their phosphorylation sites. The monophosphorylated form, however, is a mixture of equal amounts of species phosphorylated at residues 9 or 10.